by Nina Bawden
He said, ‘One thing—we won’t lose you. We just have to follow our noses.’
‘Oh stop it.’ Mary’s voice rose. ‘It’s simply not funny—not going on and on.’
There was a little silence. He said, ‘Sorry. Bad habit.’ But she heard him sigh in the darkness and guessed he was hurt. Perhaps he was shy, she thought suddenly: people who kept on making jokes often were.
She said, ‘Can we put on a light?’
‘The electricity’s off. But I’ve got my torch.’
He snapped on a thin, pencil beam. Mary could see his eyes gleaming above it. Then he swung it round, and she gasped. Except for the space where they stood, the room was crowded with statues: naked girls, stone lions, and, in one corner, a huge, wooden figure of a woman, in brightly painted draperies. She was leaning forward, hands clasped across her breast, and her head was lifted, the painted eyes staring.
‘Off an old sailing ship,’ Simon said.
Perhaps it was a trick of the torchlight, or perhaps it was hat the figure was cunningly carved, but as Mary looked, the waves of the gold hair seemed to ripple, as if blown backwards in a wind.
‘I don’t like it,’ Krishna said. His cold hand crept into Mary’s. I don’t like it here.’
‘You don’t have to stay,’ Simon said. ‘Not in this room.’
He led them out, through a dark passage where the smell of mice was stronger still, into another room. Here there was a higgledy-piggledy collection of furniture: tables, chairs, chests of drawers, old stoves, tin baths full of china ornaments. Mary looked where Simon shone the torch and saw spotted dogs, jugs and teapots. All of them were old, and most of them were broken. ‘Are they antiques?’ she asked, awed.
Simon shook his head. ‘There’s some better stuff upstairs, in the shop, but it’s mostly rubbish. Uncle Horace says people’ll buy anything on holiday, especially when it rains.’
Krishna said, ‘My father has a shop. But it is not like this. In my father’s shop, all is new.’
Afterwards Mary realised how strange and terrifying it must have been for him, to come to England from Africa and find himself in a dark, locked-up shop full of old statues and broken china. But at the time, she thought he was simply being rude, suggesting that Simon’s Uncle’s shop was a horrid, rubbishy place.
‘I think it’s lovely,’ she said. ‘Much more interesting than an ordinary shop.’
But at the same time, she wondered who could possibly want to buy a teapot without a handle, or a saucepan with a hole in the bottom.
Krishna said, ‘People must be very poor in England to want to buy these old things.’ His voice trailed into a little sob. ‘My Uncle is not poor. I want to go to London, to my Uncle.’
Simon said, ‘You can’t. Not tonight. You’ll have to sleep here.’ He took Krishna’s hand. ‘Over here …’
Tucked away behind a big wardrobe that jutted out into the room, was a Victorian couch, upholstered in faded red material.
‘It’s quite comfy, really,’ Simon said, bouncing on it. Springs twanged and a cloud of dust rose.
‘I would rather sleep in a bed,’ Krishna said, ungratefully, Mary thought.
‘Then want must be your master!’ she said, which was something people had often said to her. ‘You’ll sleep where you’re jolly well put. You’re jolly lucky to have anywhere to sleep at all. If it wasn’t for us, you’d be in a prison cell on bread and water.’
‘Don’t bully,’ Simon said. ‘I don’t think he understands.’ He put his arm round the boy’s shoulder. ‘Lie down now. I’ll find something to cover you,’
Krishna lay down submissively. Simon shone the torch on a jumble of old clothes in a corner and pulled out a shawl. It was made of yellowing silk and embroidered with red and purple flowers. ‘It’s Chinese,’ Simon said. ‘A bit raggedy, but it feels nice.’
He spread the shawl over Krishna; over its fringed edge, the dark eyes looked up at him, lost and sad.
Simon said, ‘We’ve got to go now. But we’ll come back in the morning. There’s a lavatory down the passage. I’ll leave the torch. You won’t be scared, will you?’
Krishna didn’t reply but his fingers moved on the shawl, stroking and pleating it.
Simon touched Mary’s elbow. ‘Come on,’ he said softly. ‘He’ll be all right now.’
*
So they left Krishna Patel to sleep his first night in England, on a Victorian couch, covered with an old, Chinese shawl.
They didn’t speak until they had climbed the wall again and were out in the alley.
Then Simon said, ‘It’s a daft tiling we’ve done, you know. You won’t tell anyone, will you? Not a single word …’
He sounded so urgent that Mary felt nervous. She said, ‘All we’ve done is to look after him and find him somewhere to sleep.’
‘It’s against the law, though,’ Simon said gloomily. ‘Assisting a criminal to avoid arrest. Maybe it’s not as bad as that, but it’s bad enough …’
‘Bad enough for what?’
Simon looked at her in the light of a street lamp. ‘Just bad enough,’ was all he said, but his expression, solemn and brooding, made her spine shiver.
SIX
Kidnapped
‘DO CHILDREN GET sent to prison, Grampy?’ Mary asked at breakfast.
Last night, safely back in bed while Grandfather and Aunt Alice were still watching The Sinking of The Bismarck, she had decided that this was what Simon had meant. What they had done was bad enough to get sent to prison for. The idea did not disturb Mary, in fact, she thought it would be interesting and exciting to be arrested and sent to prison, but she could see that it might worry Simon. Since his father was a policeman, he was bound to be more concerned about breaking the law.
‘Not prison, no. A special school, sometimes, if they’ve been very naughty. Why? What have you been up to?’
‘Nothing. I just wondered.’ Mary looked innocent—a shade too innocent, perhaps. Her grandfather put down his newspaper and looked at her over the top of his spectacles.
She said quickly, ‘I’m making up a story about some children who help a criminal to avoid arrest. He’s—he’s a burglar, he’s robbed a bank, and the children hide him from the police.’
‘Compounding a felony, I see. Well, of course that’s a serious matter.’
But Grandfather was smiling, picking up his paper again and pushing his spectacles up on his nose.
‘I want to know what’ll happen if they’re found out,’ Mary said.
‘It would depend. On how old they were, what sort of homes they came from. Whether they knew what they were doing.’
‘Oh, they know that. One’s a girl about my age, and there’s a boy, a bit older. The girl’s a rich orphan. She lives with her wicked Uncle who looks after her because he wants her money. She knows he hates her, but she daren’t tell anyone, because she’s frightened.’
Mary had been going to say ‘Aunt’, but she thought ‘Uncle’ was more tactful.
Grandfather said, ‘She wouldn’t be sent to prison, Mary,’ and glanced at Aunt Alice, across the table.
Aunt Alice dabbed her mouth with her napkin. ‘It sounds a sad story, dear. Why don’t you make one up about nice people, instead?’
‘Nice people are boring.’ Mary frowned, pretending to think, and went on, very casually, ‘Perhaps it isn’t a burglar they help, then. It could be an illegal immigrant—an Indian from Kenya, or someone like that.’
‘That would be quite different from a burglar,’ Aunt Alice said. She sounded indignant, and her neck reddened.
Grandfather looked amused. ‘Your Aunt means that an illegal immigrant is not a criminal, Mary. And Indians from Kenya are rather a special kind of immigrant. Kenya used to belong to England …’
‘I know that,’ Mary said. She hated to be told things she already knew.
‘Well, then. When Kenya became independent, the Indians who lived there were afraid they would be badly treated under an African government.
So they were offered British Passports, just in case. And now things have gone wrong—they’re not being ill-treated by the Africans, exactly, but things are being made difficult for them in the way of jobs, and schools for their children, and so on—a lot of them have decided to use their British Passports and come to live in England. But our government has just passed a new law saying they can’t come, after all. At least, not of right. They’ve got to take their turn with all the other people who want to come here—wait in the queue, so to speak.’
It’s disgraceful, ‘Aunt Alice said.’ Going back on our word!’
‘Well. Yes.’ Grandfather looked at Mary. ‘There is another side, of course.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t see it,’ Aunt Alice said.
‘I don’t, either,’ Mary said. ‘I think it’s just rotten, passing a law like that! Stopping people! I don’t see why people shouldn’t live where they want to live.’
‘It’s a point of view, certainly.’ Grandfather was watching her thoughtfully and although Mary was sure she had said nothing to make him suspicious, she felt uneasy, suddenly. He was the sort of person who often seemed to listen not only to what you said, but to what you didn’t say …
Now he was beginning to pull at the top of his ear and stroke the back with his thumb …
Mary said quickly, ‘Aunt Alice, could I have some sandwiches to take on the beach? I got awfully hungry yesterday.’
Aunt Alice looked startled at this sudden change of subject, but pleased. ‘Of course, dear. As long as it won’t spoil your lunch.’
‘Not with all this good sea air. I get so hungry. Hungry as a horse.’
‘Hunter, dear.’ Aunt Alice beamed fondly. ‘What kind of sandwiches? Would tomato be nice?’
*
‘I don’t suppose he likes tomatoes,’ Simon said. ‘He’s fussy. I fried him an egg for breakfast and put it between two bits of bread and he looked at it as if it was a dead mouse, or something.’
‘Cold fried egg sounds almost as nasty,’ Mary said.
The chipped, gold lettering over the door of the shop said HORACE TRUMPET ANTIQUES AND BRIC À BRAC. Mary stared into the dusty window and two large, spotted china dogs seemed to stare back at her sadly.
‘He might at least have said thank you,’ Simon said. ‘But he just looked at it and said Is this all? as if he was a prince or a maharajah or something. Then he said, When will you take me to my Uncle? As if I was a servant!’
He sounded very grumpy. Mary thought perhaps he was frightened. She said, ‘We won’t get sent to prison, you know.’
“Course not. Kids don’t get sent to prison. It’s just that I don’t see what we’re going to do! I mean, it was all very well, rescuing him last night, and it was fun in a way, but I’ve been thinking since. I didn’t sleep a wink last night!’ He glared at Mary as if this was her fault, then heaved a deep sigh and kicked moodily at a jutting paving stone. ‘I suppose he can stay in the shop for a bit, till Uncle Horace comes back, but he can’t stay there for ever.’
‘I don’t suppose he wants to! He’s got this Uncle in London hasn’t he? All we’ve got to do is ring up and say he’s here. Then we can take him to the station and put him on a train and his Uncle can meet him. If he hasn’t got any money for the fare, I’ve got some in my Pig.’
She thought it was a pity, really, that the solution was so simple; the adventure ending when it had only just begun.
‘Oh, big deal!’ Simon said. ‘Why not ring up the police while you’re about it? Do you think they’re not watching the trains? They’ll have someone at the station on the lookout for suspicious characters, and he’ll be caught, and we’ll be in dead trouble …’
‘That’s all you care about, isn’t it?’
‘No it isn’t, if you want to know!’ Simon went red as fire, and Mary remembered how he had run back to warn them last night, when he needn’t have done …
She said, ‘Well. Anyway, he’s not a suspicious character. I think you’re just foul to say that!’
‘Wait till you see him,’ Simon said. ‘His foot’s swollen up and he’s got a great lump on his head. I suppose it didn’t notice last night in the dark, but it’s big as an egg this morning. He looks as if he’s been in a fight.’
Mary said patiently, ‘Well his Uncle’ll have to come and fetch him, then! We’ll explain Krishna’s hurt, and his Uncle’ll come and fetch him by car.’
‘First catch Uncle,’ Simon said.
‘What on earth d’you mean?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘If he has got an Uncle in England, and he was supposed to meet him at the airport, why did he turn up by boat?’
‘It’s no good asking me,’ Mary said. ‘I don’t know, do I?’
*
‘I was kidnapped,’ Krishna said. He was sitting on the couch with his bad foot propped up and the Chinese shawl round his shoulders. He looked both exotic and sinister, with the shawl, and his dark skin, and the huge lump on his forehead which had half closed one eye. He would certainly be noticed if they took him to the station—Mary had to admit Simon was right about that, though he had been wrong about the tomato sandwiches, which Krishna ate with relish while he talked.
‘The plane was supposed to fly straight from Nairobi to London but we landed in France because one of the engines went wrong. We waited for a bit, and then we got on a train. There were hundreds of people—a lot of poor French people and peasants and women in black clothes—and we were all squashed in together. I went to sleep and when I woke up it was dark outside and I was hungry. A man in my carriage gave me some sweets and said, where was my mother and father? I said they had had to stay behind in Nairobi because my mother got sick, but they would come later on and buy a fine house in London and I would go to school. He said, did I really think they would let me into England, a boy on my own? I told him my Uncle would meet me, but he just laughed and asked if I had any money. He said, if I had, he knew a way to get into England without trouble. He didn’t speak English very well. He was Indian like me, but not from Kenya, and he had very poor clothes. I thought he was probably a robber, so I pretended to go back to sleep and after a bit, he got up and went away.
‘When we got to Paris, we got into a bus and went to the air terminal. Someone said there was a plane going to England, but there weren’t enough seats on it. Everyone was pushing and shouting and some people were crying. Then the stewardess who had been on the plane came up to me and said it was too late to get to England now, and the best thing would be for me to go home to Kenya. She said she would put me on the next plane back, so when she went away, I ran and hid in the lavatory.
‘What do you mean, too late to get to England now?’ Simon said.
‘Because of the new law, of course. Do you not know about the law? Our plane had to arrive in London before midnight, or they would not let us in.’
‘Sounds pretty funny to me,’ Simon said. ‘Like Cinderella, or something.’
He began to laugh, but Mary stopped him. ‘Do be quiet. I think I know what he means and I’ll tell you later, but do be quiet now …’ She turned to Krishna who had finished the last sandwich and was shaking the crumbs from the shawl. ‘How long did you hide in the lavatory?’
‘Quite a long time …’ For a minute, he looked frail and scared, as if remembering how lonely he had been, hiding in a lavatory in a strange country in the middle of the night. Then he sat up straight and said, ‘I was not afraid, of course. It was just that I did not know what to do. After a while I went out, into the hall. It was full of people, waiting, and I saw the man who had been on the train. He was sitting on one of the seats and I thought, perhaps he was not a robber after all. He saw me and smiled, so I went up and asked him how I could get a plane to England. He said the planes were full, but it would be easy if I had money for a bribe, and I told him that I had fifty pounds in English bank notes that my father had given me for my Uncle. He said he thought that would be enough, and if I would wait he would go and find out. He
gave me his seat and I went to sleep and when I woke up the man had come back with another Indian and a Frenchman. The Frenchman looked rough, like a peasant. I started to take my money out of my pocket but he stopped me. I thought perhaps he was an airport official and lie did not want to be seen taking a bribe, so I went out of the hall with the men, into the street. We got in a car and I showed my money and the Frenchman took it, and laughed. He started the car and I thought we were going to the airport, so I was happy and sat looking out. Paris is a very dirty city, not like Nairobi, and I was surprised at this, because I thought France was a rich country. We drove along, through some poor streets, and I said, It is a long way to the airport, and the Indian said we were not going to England on a plane, but by boat. Of course, I was very angry, but when I said so, they laughed at me, and then, when I told them to stop the car and let me get out, the man who was sitting in the back with me, twisted my arm behind my back until I thought it would break. It is still painful here …’
He touched the upper part of one arm with the other hand and a flicker of remembered fear crossed his face, so that Mary, who had been envying him this exciting adventure, felt a little frightened herself.
Krishna said, ‘Of course, then I knew that these were not good men but wicked ruffians, and if I did not keep quiet, they would do me some terrible harm—slit my throat, perhaps, and leave me bleeding to death in the street! So I did not speak again and sat very still, for hours. I tried to think of some way to outwit them, but they were three desperate men against one boy! And although the two men went to sleep after a while, the Frenchman was watching me all the time in the driving mirror …’
Simon said abruptly, ‘They couldn’t have been really wicked. I mean, they did bring you here. They could just have stolen all your money and left you behind, in France.’
‘They would not have dared do that!’ Krishna’s undamaged eye glistened. ‘Because I would have told a policeman, and then they would never have escaped! He would have stopped them before they got to the boat!’